Nouinou v. Guterres

Background

Fatimazohra Nouinou filed this action concerning, among other matters, the non-renewal of her short-term employment contract with the United Nations in 2018. She alleged employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 42 U.S.C. § 1981, and asserted state-law claims under the court’s diversity jurisdiction. She proceeded without an attorney and without paying the filing fee.

The court had previously identified deficiencies in her original complaint and allowed her to amend. It had held that the United Nations Secretary General was immune from suit, that Title VII did not authorize claims against the individual defendants, that discrimination based on national origin and sex and retaliation for complaints about United Nations corruption did not arise under § 1981, and that some § 1981 claims against Swanson appeared untimely.

Nouinou then filed an amended complaint exceeding 800 pages. The court described it as sprawling and said it did not provide the short and plain statement required by Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The complaint included materials concerning her family and childhood, United Nations personnel proceedings, citizenship and statelessness issues, access to United Nations premises, security arrangements, and medical issues.

Federal claims

The court dismissed Nouinou’s claims under § 1981 and Title VII for failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted.

For § 1981, the court explained that a plaintiff must allege membership in a racial minority, intentional race discrimination, and discrimination involving an activity covered by the statute. The court said that § 1981 can cover discrimination based on ancestry, ethnic characteristics, or alienage, but not discrimination based only on national origin. Although Nouinou mentioned Andalusian Spaniard ancestry, the court found that she pleaded no facts plausibly suggesting that either defendant acted against her on that basis. The court understood her allegations, at most, as asserting discrimination based on her place or nation of origin, including the former free zone of Tangier, which is part of Morocco.

The court also held that Title VII claims cannot be brought against individual defendants. It therefore dismissed the federal claims under §§ 1981 and 2000e for failure to state a claim.

Diversity jurisdiction

Diversity jurisdiction is a federal court’s authority to hear certain disputes involving citizens of different states or qualifying combinations of state and foreign citizenship, generally where more than $75,000 is at stake. Nouinou alleged that she was a lawful permanent resident domiciled in New York, that Smith was a citizen of Massachusetts, and that Swanson was a citizen of Great Britain.

The court held that complete diversity was lacking because a lawful permanent resident domiciled in a state remains an alien for diversity purposes, and Swanson was also alleged to be a foreign citizen. The court therefore granted Nouinou an opportunity to replead her state-law claims under diversity jurisdiction against Smith only. It directed her to drop her claims against Swanson because Swanson’s presence defeated diversity jurisdiction.

Leave to amend and disposition

The court granted Nouinou 30 days to file a second amended complaint. The new complaint had to completely replace, rather than supplement, the amended complaint and had to provide a short and plain statement of the relevant facts supporting each claim against Smith. The court instructed her to identify the relevant people, describe the events and what each defendant did or failed to do, state the approximate dates and locations, describe her injuries, and identify the relief sought.

The court stated that no summons would issue at that time. If Nouinou failed to comply within the allowed period and could not show good cause, the federal claims in the amended complaint would be dismissed for failure to state a claim, and the court would decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims. The Clerk was directed to mail the order to Nouinou and record service on the docket.